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The 1917 Code of Canon Law explicitly declared that joining Freemasonry entailed automatic excommunication and banned books favouring Freemasonry. [178] In 1983, the Church issued a new code of canon law. Unlike its predecessor, the 1983 Code of Canon Law did not explicitly name Masonic orders among the secret societies it condemns.
Freemasons often say that they "are not a secret society, but rather a society with secrets". The secrets of Freemasonry are the various modes of recognition – grips (handshakes), words (akin to modern passwords), and signs (hand gestures) that indicate one is a Freemason.
The history of Freemasonry encompasses the origins, evolution and defining events of the fraternal organisation known as Freemasonry.It covers three phases. Firstly, the emergence of organised lodges of operative masons during the Middle Ages, then the admission of lay members as "accepted" (a term reflecting the ceremonial "acception" process that made non-stone masons members of an operative ...
The earliest document which accused Freemasonry of being involved in a conspiracy was Enthüllungen des Systems der Weltbürger-Politik ("Disclosure of the System of Cosmopolitan Politics"), published in 1786. [80] The book claimed that Freemasons and Jesuits were plotting to foment a world revolution. [81]
Freemasonry in the United States is the history of Freemasonry as it was introduced from Britain and continues as a major secret society to the present day. It is a fraternal order that brings men together (and women through its auxiliaries) to gain friendship and opportunity for advancement and community progress.
Freemasonry was an important catalyst in the founding of the Knights of Columbus and the Knights of Peter Claver in the United States [131] and the Knights of the Southern Cross in Australia, because one of the attractions of Freemasonry was that it provided a number of social services unavailable to non-members (e.g., devout Catholics).
Adolf Hitler believed that Freemasonry was a tool of Jewish influence, [12] and outlawed Freemasonry and persecuted Freemasons partially for this reason. [13] The covenant of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas claims that Freemasonry is a "secret society" founded as part of a Zionist plot to control the world. [14]
In 2019, Latter-day Saint History (a YouTube channel operated by the LDS Church) released a brief video called "Freemasonry and Relief Society in Nauvoo" wherein historians Christian Heimburger and Alex D. Smith discuss the effect that Freemasonry had in the formation of the Relief Society of the LDS Church. [12]